Today's Daily Lesson comes from Jeremiah chapter 50 verses 4-7:
4 In those days and in that time, says the Lord, the people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together; they shall come weeping as they seek the Lord their God. 5 They shall ask the way to Zion, with faces turned toward it, and they shall come and join themselves to the Lord by an everlasting covenant that will never be forgotten.
6 My people have been lost sheep; their shepherds have led them astray, turning them away on the mountains; from mountain to hill they have gone, they have forgotten their fold. 7 All who found them have devoured them, and their enemies have said, “We are not guilty, because they have sinned against the Lord, the true pasture, the Lord, the hope of their ancestors.”
We nearing now to the end of the book of Jeremiah. And he we have the vision: the people put back together.
For too long bad shepherds have guided them. They've fleeced the flock and led them astray. They have brought them into a place of lostness and calamity. Those who devour them do so with self-justification. They point the finger with derision. "They deserve everything," they say. "For they are no more noble than we." It is a nation torn apart at the seams and its enemies pulling them apart smugly and shrewdly.
But then the vision comes. The nation being stitched back together. The people coming together:
"The people of Israel shall come, they and the people of Judah together."
They come together, and together they find their way home.
Let the vision remain. We may be in Babylon now. The people were when Jeremiah spoke. But he didn't let go of the vision. It remained. It spoke. It sustained. For it was true. Hope and a Future were true.
And they still are; even now, they still are true.
NOTE: We are reading the whole Bible through this year. As we are coming to the end of Jeremiah tomorrow we will read chapters 51-52.
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